Israeli Violations' Activities in the oPt 1 August 2018

The daily report highlights the violations behind Israeli home demolitions and demolition threats The Violations are based on in the occupied Palestinian territory, the reports provided by field workers confiscation and razing of lands, the uprooting and\or news sources. and destruction of fruit trees, the expansion of The text is not quoted directly settlements and erection of outposts, the brutality from the sources but is edited for of the Israeli Occupation Army, the Israeli settlers clarity. violence against Palestinian civilians and properties, the erection of checkpoints, the The daily report does not construction of the Israeli segregation wall and necessarily reflect ARIJ’s opinion. the issuance of military orders for the various Israeli purposes.

Brutality of the Israeli Occupation Army

• Violent confrontations erupted as hundreds of Israeli settlers stormed the northern West Bank city of Nablus, guarded by the Israeli occupation Army (IOA) and for the purpose of performing Talmudic rituals. The IOA, accompanied by a bulldozer, stormed Beit Furik checkpoint, to the east of Nablus. Dozens of Israeli Occupation Army (IOA) then stormed the Dahiya neighborhood, near Joseph’s tomb, coming from the military point on Mount Gerizim. Confrontations

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centered in Dahiya, Street, Amman Street and Al-Hesba Street, in the vicinity of the tomb, where the IOA fired sound bombs and tear gas. During the confrontations, journalist Mu’tasim Suqef al- Hitt, a reporter for Quds News Network, was wounded with two metal bullets in his feet while covering the events. (IMEMC 5 August 2018) • The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) invaded the towns of Deir Sharaf, Qusin, Salem, Sebastia, and Asira ash-Shamaliya, in Nablus governorate, and attacked dozens of Palestinian protesters. (IMEMC 5 August 2018)

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) invaded Abu Sneina neighborhood, in Hebron city, in the southern part of the West Bank, and fired gas bombs and concussion grenades at local protesters, causing many Palestinians to suffer the effects of teargas inhalation. (IMEMC 5 August 2018)

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) raided the town of Arraba, south of Jenin, and erected a military checkpoint at its entrance, before storming Fahmi Anis Mousa's house and interrogating its inhabitants.(WAFA 1 August 2018)

Israeli Arrests

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) detained four Palestinians from their homes in the Hebron governorate, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.The IOA stormed and violently searched dozens of homes in the city, and nearby towns of Doura, Beit Awwa, ath- Thaheriyya, as-Sammoa’ and Ethna. During the violent searches, the IOA interrogated many Palestinians while inspecting their ID cards. The IOA then detained Anas Ahmad al-Awwadi, 20, from Ethna, Wael Abdul-Mo’ti al-Fakhouri and his son Ibrahim, from Hebron city, in addition to Mohammad Yousef al-Qaisiyya, 25, from ath-Thaheriyya. (IMEMC 5 August 2018)

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) invaded Beit Rima town, northwest of Ramallah in central West Bank, and detained Adham Sobhi Rimawi, 22. The IOA detained Rimawi after undercover officers infiltrated into

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the town driving a truck used for selling fruits and vegetables, before breaking into his home. (IMEMC 5 August 2018)

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) invaded Zawata village, west of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, and detained a journalist working for a local radio station, identified as Mohammad Anwar Mona, after storming his home and searching it. His Detention brings the number of Palestinian journalists imprisoned by , to 30. (IMEMC 5 August 2018)

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) invaded Beit Iba town, northwest of Nablus, and detained a young man, identified as Anwar Taleb Sanallah, after invading his home and violently searching it. (IMEMC 5 August 2018)

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) invaded Hizma town northeast of Jerusalem and detained Muhammad Mahmoud Ken’an. (WAFA 1 August 2018)

Home Demolition & Demolition threats

• The Israeli Occupation Army (IOA) invaded Al Arroub refugee camp north of Hebron and razed12 graves that were added recently to the city. (WAFA 1 August 2018)

Israeli Military Orders

• The Israeli Occupation Army (IOA) invaded Kirbit Yarza village, east of Tubas in northeastern West Bank, and handed orders to four Bedouin families to leave their dwellings ahead of live-fire military drills. The IOA handed official notices to the families of Faisal Masa’eed, Ismael Masa’eed, Jamal Daraghma and Mohammad Daraghma instructing them to leave their residential areas and dwellings ahead of military drills planned for this coming Monday August 6th at 4 P.M. until Tuesday morning. The IOA also instructed the families to leave their dwellings again on Thursday, August 9th, ahead of military training starting at 4 P.M until 6 A.M on Friday morning, August 10th. The families were also ordered to leave their

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dwellings, yet again, on Tuesday, August 14, starting at 4 P.M. until 6 A.M the next day. (IMEMC 5 August 2018)

Confiscation & Razing of lands

• The Israeli occupation Army (IOA) seized a truck that was installing power lines in Jabal Sabeeh area in Beita village south of Nablus and detained the driver and the mayor. It is worth mentioning that settlers are seeking to establish a settlement in the area in which the municipality operates. (WAFA 1 August 2018) • Israeli bulldozers razed land in the Beit Ta'mir area east of Bethlehem to establish a park in the area between Nekodim and Eldad settlements. The area to be seized is approximately 100 dunums, and will connect the settlements of Nekodim and Elad together. (WAFA 1 August 2018)

Expansion of settlements

• Two cabinet ministers, two candidates for Jerusalem mayor, the Sephardi chief rabbi of the city and a right-wing US former governor on Wednesday celebrated at a cornerstone ceremony for a heritage center in a former Yemenite synagogue, in overwhelmingly Palestinian Silwan, near the Temple Mount. Also on hand was a representative of the Moskowitz family, which supports Jewish settlement in Palestinian neighborhoods of the capital. The building — once the synagogue of Kfar Hashiloah, a village built for poor Yemenite immigrants in the early 1880s and evacuated during Arab riots in the early 20th century — was acquired in 2015 by the right-wing Ateret Cohanim organization, which settles Jews in East Jerusalem. That was after a long legal battle that culminated in 2015 with a court ordering the Palestinian Abu Nab family living there to leave. One member of the family still has an apartment in the complex, but the access to it is in the hands of Ateret Cohanim — an issue that is still being contested in the courts. The Culture Ministry is to provide NIS 3 million ($816,000) and the Jerusalem Affairs Ministry NIS 1.5 million ($408,000) toward a $3 million project to establish the heritage center in the former synagogue for the preservation of Yemenite immigrant culture. A Miami Beach synagogue has pledged to raise half a million dollars, while the US-based Rohr family has helped to fund a religious study center there. Paying tribute to fellow lawmaker Nurit Koren, who pushed for the project to be funded, and to Ateret Cohanim founder and chairman Matti Dan, whom she called “the greatest of all,” Culture Minister Miri Regev said, “Look around. We are

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surrounded by Jewish heritage. The archaeologists won’t find a single Palestinian coin here! We have come home.” Eighty years after the British mandatory police evacuated the Jews to protect them from Arab rioters, the Jewish community returned to the synagogue, bringing with it “a Torah scroll, Torah learning, liturgical songs and the cultural richness of the great, modest, Israel-loving Yemenite people,” she said. Ze’ev Elkin, the environmental protection minister, who also holds the Jerusalem Affairs portfolio and has announced that he is running for Jerusalem mayor, said, “Just as we are proud to be connected with everything happening in the City of David [another part of Silwan, where Jews associated with the right-wing El Ad organization are creating tourism projects and settling Jews], we are proud to be connecting with the history of the Yemenite immigration here.” When people asked whether it was worth the trouble of acquiring buildings in East Jerusalem now occupied by Palestinians, he said, “I show them the history. This is the real history of Jerusalem. It’s the truth and nobody can erase it. “We were on this hill 3,000 years ago. We have buried our dead near here [on the Mount of Olives] for thousands of years. It’s exactly 80 years since the were driven out of here,” Elkin said. “We are creating historical justice by coming back here, renovating the synagogue and creating a heritage center that thousands of Jews can visit.” Moshe Lion, a member of the Jerusalem Municipality and a rival candidate for mayor, said he hoped “as many [such] places as possible” could be dedicated in East Jerusalem. Daniel Moskowitz, whose late father, Irving, was an American Jewish philanthropist who donated millions of dollars to Jewish settlement efforts in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and was a key supporter of Ateret Cohanim, said his mother was keen to partner with the government so that together they could bring projects “to a level beyond what we can imagine.” Daniel Luria, executive director of Ateret Cohanim, said the synagogue project constituted “pure Zionism. We are all part of the unfolding redemption process, the return to this land and to our capital Jerusalem,” he said. “The government has recognized this place as a heritage site and that’s sovereignty and it’s beautiful and welcome.” He continued, “We have seen God’s hand every step of the way. Even though we haven’t reached 150 families, we have made great strides. Ateret Cohanim owns six buildings in the Batan el-Hawa area of Silwan. “Life in Shiloach Village is flourishing again with 21 families and 80 children,” Luria said. Earlier in the day, the former Arkansas governor and US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee — a prominent backer of the Jewish settlement enterprise . (TOI 1 August 2018)

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Other

• Palestinians in the West Bank village of Al-Mughayyir awoke Monday morning to discover that they had had unwelcome visitors overnight: Car tires had been punctured, and houses were spray-painted with slogans in Hebrew protesting stone-throwing. Two kilometers away, 25 trees belonging to the villagers were cut down – the latest of more than 2,000 trees that have been destroyed since May 1. As in dozens of similar incidents in recent months, police have opened an investigation but haven’t yet arrested any suspects. Attacks by Jews on Palestinian villages throughout the West Bankhave become commonplace in recent months. Almost every week, Palestinians somewhere in the territory wake up to vandalized property and racist slogans in Hebrew. So far, police have arrested 10 people in the cases. Some were questioned about specific attacks, but most were only interrogated about involvement in hate crimes in general. And all were later released. The investigations continue, but they have yet to produce any results. At least 2,000 trees were said to have been cut down between May 1 and July 7, including fruit trees, olive trees and grape vines, according to data from Palestinian victims of hate crimes collected by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. In some cases, the vandals torched bales of hay; in one case, they set fire to an entire field of barley. A particularly common slogan is “Enough agricultural terror,” the implication being that the attacks on Palestinian orchards and vineyards are to protest Palestinian attacks on Jewish orchards and vineyards. Sometimes the damage is fairly small, such as the 25 trees cut down in Al-Mughayyir. Other attacks are much larger in scope. On May 26, for example, 700 vines were cut down in a vineyard near Hebron. On May 16, 400 vines were destroyed in Halhul, and on May 22, 180 vines were destroyed in the town. Altogether, B’Tselem said, at least 880 vines in five separate vineyards were destroyed in Halhul in May. Mazen Shehadeh, the mayor of the West Bank Palestinian village of Urif, said there have been four or five attacks affecting five different farmers in his village, where several dozen trees were destroyed. “They’ve caused damage like this four or five times,” he said. “Once they destroyed 34 trees, and later they destroyed another 17 trees – big ones, 75 or 80 years old. “Another time they torched cars,” he continued. “That was the last time. In total, five farmers have been hurt by this, five people. There are no suspects or anything like that.” Much of the vandalism has targeted olive trees, which are easier to cut down than other trees. In Turmus Ayya, 130 olives trees were destroyed on June 9, and in Burin, a fire damaged 150 trees on June 23. In that case,

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however, there were no slogans in Hebrew to support the claim that this was an attack by Israelis. (Haaretz 1 August 2018)

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